This first volume of former intelligence officer and Sunday Times defense correspondent Michael Smith's superb history of Britain's secret service begins with the appointment in 1909 of Commander Mansfield Smith Cumming, the original C, the equivalent of James Bond's M. His task was to find out the strength and intentions of the Imperial German army and navy before and during World War I. But the war was not even over before the Russian Revolution saw Britain's spies switching the resources to countering communism, recruiting Trotsky's secretary to report from within the Kremlin. Taking us to the eve of World War II, Smith accounts for plenty of murder and mayhem in the service that would become famous as MI6.

"As a rollicking chronicle of demented derring-do, Smith's book is hard to beat. His research is prodigious and his eye for a good story impeccable, and his book, while perfectly scholarly, often reads like a real-life James Bond thriller."—Sunday Times (London)

"Michael Smith takes a broad view, adding new stories, filling in details, using true names and dates, and perhaps most interesting, describing the reactions of government entities to the intelligence they received."—CIA Website